Title: Loved
Rating: G
Pairing / Characters: Hyuuga Hinata, Hyuuga Neji
Word Count: 332 words
Warnings: Not one…
Summary: They are not loved…
A/N: I saw this picture today on and quite frankly, I was entranced enough to write about it. The caption is just called 'loved' so I don't know who the artist is but well, you'll understand…
clears throat… gets to feet… announces loudly… I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!
(so yeah, just to clear up any misunderstandings.)
They sit alone in a darkened corner of a darkened house.
She is perched tentatively on his lap, a ragged, torn, and much abused teddy bear in her icy hands. He leans against the wall, his head close to hers, for once vulnerable where he would otherwise seem impenetrable.
They have abandoned their usual outfits for something that suits the darkness that hangs over their lives – she wears a black dress and maroon stockings, with patent leather shoes and a maroon collar around her neck. He wears plain black pants and a dark grey shirt, and a similar collar is taut around his throat.
Neither of them want to leave the house, despite the chill seeping through the floor boards and through the cracked, damaged windows. It is all they have left, the only solidity in an otherwise unstable world. So they sit, eyes on the growing shadows and the fading light.
Neither of them are loved. It is one of the things that ties them together and at the same time keeps them apart. People can be so fragile, and they understand this more clearly than anyone else. It isn't that they love each other, no, but the ties that hold them run deeper than the bonds that hold a family together. Family they might be, but the world – and their clan – would never accept it.
A tear slides down her cheek, and he wipes it away with his thumb before slipping an arm behind her back so she doesn't have to lean against the cold wall. In answer, she clutches the teddy bear tighter and stares into the darkness. She doesn't care anymore, and neither does he.
They sit alone in a darkened corner of a darkened house, not speaking or exchanging eye contact. The world is a lonely place for the leader and the damned, and the instability of their small world slowly crumbles minute by minute.
They can do nothing but wait for the moment when it breaks.